1. Field of Invention
The invention disclosed and claimed herein pertains to a method and apparatus for improving or enhancing identification of a mobile device, which is used to request access to a secure data processing system or a component thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to prevent a hacker or other unauthorized user from obtaining access to a data processing system, a currently used arrangement employs an IP address range restrictions technique. In this technique, an administrator sets up a list of trusted IP addresses that are allowed to access the system. Each of the listed addresses is included in the intranet of the enterprise or other organization that controls the data processing system. If a hacker attempts to impersonate a trusted user by means of a system that is outside of the organization intranet, the attempted access will be denied.
While the above technique of IP address range restrictions has worked for computers that are part of a corporate or other organization intranet, this technique is generally not usable for mobile devices that seek to access systems associated with such intranets. This is because the IP address of a mobile device, also known as a handheld computer, can be continually and unpredictably changed by its service provider. However, as is well known by those of skill in the art, the number of mobile devices in use is growing very rapidly. Such devices, merely by way of example, include personal digital assistants (PDAs), smartphones, and iPads™. It would therefore be useful to provide an approach for more readily recognizing or identifying mobile devices that are authorized to access a particular secure system.